The Embers

Praise for Hyatt Bass and The Embers

“The Embers is the sort of novel I’m always hoping to find–from the first page, I was transfixed. Hyatt Bass’s lyrical story of a broken family is, in a word, stunning. The Embers is the best book I’ve read in a long time.”

Amanda Eyre Ward, author of How To Be Lost and Love Stories in This Town

“Ten minutes into The Embers, I was completely hooked. Each member of this struggling family is portrayed with so much empathy and intelligence. The pacing is excellent, and the prose is exact. Reading it was a thought-provoking pleasure.”

Laura Moriarty, author of The Rest of Her Life and The Center of Everything

“What is more powerful a place than the family? It’s the center of our lives, and the crucible of our experience: The Embers, Hyatt Bass’s lovely first novel, asks questions that only the family can answer, and delivers truths that only the family contains.”

Roxana Robinson, author of Cost

“A riveting narrative. . . Bass’s excavation of a complex familial labyrinth is an elegant testament to the beautiful mess that is family.”

Publishers Weekly

“This heart-wrenching debut novel from filmmaker Bass (Seventy-Five Degrees in July) crisscrosses 16 years of one family’s life, weaving a tender tale riveting in its realism. In the fall of 2007, bride-to-be Emily Ascher should be deliriously happy but instead is coping with many doubts and dilemmas. While confident of her love for her fiancé and now enjoying an easier give-and-take with her mother, Emily still faces an uneasy relationship with her father. Joe, a once-famous playwright and actor, is still carrying the burden of guilt for the tragic death of Emily’s brother, Thomas. As the nuptials approach, this struggling, splintered family picks up the pieces, and they all go on with their lives. Bass’s well-paced, nuanced family saga is as engrossing as it is empathetic. Sure to appeal to readers who enjoy such family dramas as Judith Guest’s Ordinary People. “

Library Journal (starred review)

“A moving tale about grief’s tenacious hold and the road to redemption.”

“Bass . . . is a sensitive observer of family dynamics, of the way people can fail to really see the ones they love. . . . The Embers [is] contemplative and psychologically attuned.”

Laurie Muchnick, Bloomberg.com

“First novels shine too. In filmmaker Hyatt Bass’s The Embers, newly engaged Emily and her parents finally begin coping with the death of Emily’s brother.”

Barbara Hoffert, The Phoenix, “The Best in Summer Reading

“A riveting examination of a high-profile clan and its fall from grace … The Embers builds like the fire its title conjures, glowing a little, then suddenly bursting into sparks of narrative that make it nigh on impossible to put down … The Embers will inspire readers to examine their own judgments about those they love, and perhaps give someone another chance. Bass is a new author with an old soul, and a talent worth tending.”

Joy Tipping, Dallas Morning News

One of InStyle Magazine’s Top 5 Beach Reads for Summer 2009.

“Just fabulous … I was caught up in these characters from the very first page until the very last.”